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Tuesday, December 2, 2008

For Academic Visitors, Places to Visit in the Zamboanga Peninsula

For academic visitors who need to do researches on the Subano peoples on their language, their culture, their literature, their way of life, these are the mountain communities to visit in the Zamboanga Peninsula where the last of the pure Subano speaking generation are still available for recording and videoing as they chant their epics for days up to a week, GUMAN in their language, dance their dances, sing the songs, recite their garays, sing almost rapping their ginarongs.

Titik - A mountain community some 50 kilometers from the town of Bacungan, Zamboanga del Norte.The community is reachable only by illegal and unregistered passenger motorcycles from the town of Bacungan officially known as Leon Postigo. The old lady who chanted for an Ateneo de Zamboanga University scholar in 1997 for his thesis about Subano gumans hopefuly is still alive. The lady speaks only the Subano language

Pangandao - A mountain community 18 kilometers away from the town of Manukan, Zamboanga del Norte. The community is reachable by illegal and unregistered passenger motorcycles from the town of center of Manukan or by copra trucks. Climbs to the copra trucks to mountain community is unscheduled althou almost daily copra traders in the town dispatch their trucks to carry copra down to the town for scaling. Chanters of Subano epics (gumans) may still be around although no researching scholar were known to have been to the place for the purpose. Singers of the Subano ginarongs, a shorter form of chanted or sang Subano literature are still around. Singing or chanting of one story could last for hours.